Dean's First Hunt
by clair beaubien
Summary: Wee-Chester story. Dean needs to figure out why Sam's having such a hard time letting him go on his first hunt. UP now: Ch 2 tag scene to Sacrifice. Dean & Sam are at the ER. Sam asks, "Do you remember your first hunt?"
1. Chapter 1

"He's in the closet." Pastor Jim whispered to me. "Go easy on him."

"_Yeah_."

So I went to the front closet and sat down against the wall next to the door that was open a crack. I could hear Sammy sniffling inside. The kid was eight years old and _crying_, for crying out loud.

"You gonna come out here and talk about it?" I asked him. "Or are you gonna sit in there crying like a little girl?"

"Shut up." Came the sharp command. "_Jerk_."

"_Bitch."_ I offered back automatically, then had a fast look around to see if Pastor Jim heard me. A rectory didn't quite seem the place for that particular word. But we were alone. Me and my weeping little brother. Gee whiz.

"You gonna make me come in there?"

"_No_. No, just go ahead and leave. Leave and don't come back, see if I care."

Right, he 'wouldn't care' so much he was already crying his eyes out.

"Sammy, c'mon. It's a salt and burn. No big deal. We'll be back tomorrow night. _It's no big deal._"

"Then why does Dad need _you_?"

"I have to start learning sometime."

The truth was, I'd been aching for Dad to take me hunting for years now. But as long as Sammy didn't know the score, Dad didn't want him left on his own, even with Pastor Jim.

"_THEN GO!" _Sam screamed at me, actually _screamed_. _"GO AHEAD AND LEAVE ME ALONE. I HATE YOU!"_

That was kind of extreme, even for Sam. There was no way he was jealous that I was going hunting when he wasn't. But he couldn't be that freaked that I was going somewhere without him. Could he?

"Sammy, I told you. We'll be back tomorrow night at the latest." Maybe I'd get Dad to turn right around and head back, and not stop off for the night.

"No you won't." Sammy sniffled. He'd gone from screaming to miserable. "You'll never come back."

_What the -?_

"All right, Sammy, I'm coming in."

I turned from where I was sitting and crawled in among the long coats and ancient _galoshes_, and all the while I could hear Sammy pulling himself away from me into the farthest corner he could get to.

"_No, go away, get out, go hunt, go ahead."_

He pushed away at me but there wasn't much energy behind it and even in the tangle of outerwear I got him in a lock with his arms pinned to his sides and his back pressed to my front. He struggled, but not hard. Then he just leaned back into me.

"All right – _what?_ It's just a salt and burn. Not even a vengeful spirit. What makes you think I won't come back?"

One really noisy sniff preceded his answer.

"_You'll be a hunter."_

"Yeah, that's kinda the point…"

"It won't be _us _anymore." He struggled against me holding him until I realized that all he wanted was to be able to wipe his eyes. "It'll be you and Dad. You'll come back just _like _Dad and all it'll be is _hunting._ You won't wanna play games with me or watch TV with me or do anything but _hunt._" He started breathing fast again, crying again. "And I _don't hunt_ and you'll hate me just like Dad hates me."

"Hey – _hey_ -." I tried to move around to be able to look Sam in the eyes, but the closet was dark and Pastor Jim had some _long_ coats and I nearly smothered myself before I got us sitting face to face. "Dad _doesn't_ hate you. Dad loves you more than anything else in the _whole world_. Why do you think he hates you?"

"B-b-b-because…" Then he was crying again. "It's always _you._ Dad always wants to talk to _you, _he always wants to work with _you,_ he never – I never do anything he ever wants to do with _me_."

He choked and hiccupped and struggled on around his crying.

"And when you come back, it'll be the same with you. All _hunting,_ all _Dad, _all _nothing_ with me. _You_ won't come back and I won't have _anybody_…"

That was the end of Sammy's last straw and he broke down sobbing for all he was worth. I gathered him up like I used to when he was a littler kid. I bundled him against my chest and between my knees, I wrapped my arms as tight around him as I could and rocked him as much as I could in the little space we had.

"C'mon, Sammy. It's not like that. I _am_ coming back. _Me._ Your awesome big brother." I paused for any reaction, but didn't get any. "I promise Sammy, nothing will ever be as important to me as you are. _I promise."_

There was finally a break in the weeping.

_"You really promise_?" He asked in a whisper.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick some Cool Whip on my pie."

That made him laugh. That _always_ made him laugh.

"We okay?" I asked.

"No." He shook his head under my chin.

"We _gonna_ be okay?"

It took a couple beats of thinking, but he nodded finally, "Yeah," and nestled himself into my arms. "I love you, Dean."

"I love you too, Sammy."

The End.


	2. Chapter 2

I can hear this girl talking in the next cubicle, telling her friend how she accidentally "replied all" on some email and let _everybody_ know how big a crush she has on Tom Hiddleston and how embarrassing that is.

Yeah? You know what sweetheart? I told my little brother that I love him more than anything else in the known & unknown universe, right in front of the King of Hell.

Top that.

We're at the ER. The angels have stopped falling, Sam has stopped dying, Cas is missing, I'm surviving on caffeine and fumes, and somebody really needs to tell the fangirl in the next cubicle that Loki from the movies is a friggin' terrorist who doesn't deserve to be drooled over.

Speaking of drooling -

"Hey, Sammy. How're you doing? Still awake?"

He hasn't been seen by a doctor yet, but the extremely helpful nurse set him up with an IV and extra blankets while we wait.

"There's nothing they can do." He says. Again. He's turned mostly on his side, facing mostly my way.

"The ice bath brought your temperature down the other day, so other things have to work, too. Who knows, you might need a rabies shot. I need you to not die."

He huffs a small laugh that sounds embarrassed and spares a very short glance directly at me.

"Yeah, you said as much before."

I pretend to drink non-existent coffee out of my empty cup so I don't have to respond to that comment.

"Hey, Dean? You remember your first hunt?"

"Yeah, salt and burn. A restless spirit. The grave was up a hillside from a campground. But no - me and Dad didn't ride any donkeys, if that's what you were thinking. Why? You still remembering every little detail of every little thing?"

"Yeah - no. I just - I was just wondering."

Yeah, right. Sam never 'just wonders' about anything.

"Sam?"

"I just - I remember - while you were gone, Pastor Jim took me to see Aladdin."

Right, he unearths a twenty-year-old-plus memory just to reminisce about a Disney movie.

"Did you like it?"

"I wanted to see Lethal Weapon 3, but he wouldn't take me."

"Yeah, sounds like Pastor Jim."

"Yeah."

Then Sam's quiet and the girl in the next cubicle is 'awwww-ing' over some Loki-related-thing (and I'm telling you, she should've met _our_ Loki,) and I need more coffee only I'm not sure I can get out of this chair.

So I sit and wonder what Sam is wondering about.

There are times I miss those old, first days. When I first started hunting. I was just thirteen and thought I owned the world. Hunting with Dad, taking care of Sam, getting things _done. _Nothing was impossible, as long as I had Dad and Sammy with me.

That first 'hunt' had been a total non-event, though. Some restless spirit got woken up by new construction at the old campground or something. Not vengeful, just bothersome. Unzipping tents in the middle of the night, looking in trailer windows, hanging aluminum lawn chairs off tree branches.

About the most exciting thing about the whole hunt was the grief Sam gave me right before I left. I remember how he hid in Pastor Jim's front closet because he was so pissed at me, something he hadn't done for at least three years before that. I remember having to crawl in after him, and the smell of old wool coats and older rubber galoshes.

_I remember not two hours ago that rotting old church and Sam holding his bloody hand only an inch away from letting himself die to prove to me - to prove to himself - that he wasn't the failure he always thought that I thought he was._

_I remember holding my sobbing little brother, who was too young and too old both at the same time, who was desperate to hear that he'd always be the most important thing in my life._

The more things change, hunh?

Is that what he's remembering?

Sam's eyes are still open, mostly. He's watching himself play two-fingered chopsticks on one of the bars of the side rail. His face is still the color of dying embers.

"Dad drove us straight back after that hunt." I say.

"Yeah? You told him to, didn't you?"

"I didn't have to. He wanted to get back to you. Whenever you weren't with us, he worried about you. You might not believe it, but it was hard for him to leave you behind. It always was."

"Yeah." Sam says, but I can't be sure it's an agreement. "He brought me back a pocket knife that trip. That big black one with the edges that looked like bark."

"Yeah, I know that one. You still carry it, don't you?"

"Yeah, sometimes." He tilts his head up to get a better look at me. "You brought me a bag of Funyuns."

"Yeah, and you didn't share." I say. Honestly, I can't remember but what the heck. It gets a smile out of Sam.

"Did you mean what you said?" He asks and I immediately think, _c'mon Sammy, don't make me go through all of that again. Loki-Girl might hear._

"What I said about what?"

"You think we can turn the tide?"

I let out a breath that is all relief but that I try to make sound like it's all _'hell, yeah'_.

"You know it."

He nods and goes back to chopsticks and I consider the inside of my empty coffee cup. Somewhere, caffeine is calling my name and I'm ready to walk just to avoid where this conversation might be going, but I don't want to leave Sam just like that just because of where this conversation is.

"You going to get coffee?" Sam asks. He knows my tells. "Would you bring me back some juice? Just - whatever they have?"

"Sure thing. Anything else?"

He thinks about it.

"Bag of Funyuns?"

"You got it."

I stop at the cubicle curtain and give one look back at Sam before I head for the cafeteria. Chopsticks are over, he' still and quiet, but at least he's alive. Maybe we didn't close hell and maybe we didn't close heaven, but it still turned out to be a good day.

The end.


End file.
